Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Newsletter/Newsroom/Issue2-5

Issue 5 (06/17/2008)
Publication deadline: 12 PM Pacific-3 PM Eastern on June 17.

Please sign up for what you want to write. Have it done by the publication deadline.

Introduction

 * Editor:

Feature 1

 * Editor: ComputerGuy890100

Project passes 10,000 Articles

Our project has passed the 10,000 article mark on June 2, as stated by Scott5114. This makes up for 0.4% of Wikipedia in total. The discovery was made by WP 1.0 bot and later reported by Scott5114 on June 11. There is still work to improve all 10,000 articles, and out of all of them, there are 12 featured articles, 2 featured lists, 8 A-class articles, and 100 Good Articles (excluding A-class), for a 122 total top articles, which makes about 8% of the 10,000 articles.


 * Source: WT:USRD

Feature 2

 * Editor: DanTheMan474 and Imzadi1979

The Chicago Roads Meet has come and gone, and it was a blast. The weather was touch-and-go, with a few scattered rain showers popping in from time to time, but for the most part Mother Nature was cooperative

Participants gathered for a small meet-and-greet on Thursday evening right in the Downers Grove area. On Friday morning, the gathering kicked into high gear, with eight people from five states gathered for a tour of numerous areas in the Chicagoland area, including northwest Indiana. Wikipedians included Scott5114, Imzadi1979 and DanTheMan474. Some of the highlights from the tollways, highways and by-ways of the Chicago area included:


 * The I-190/O'Hare Loop
 * Thorndale Rd. & the Elgin-O'Hare Expressway (featuring a wide right-of-way for Thorndale Rd. where an Elgin-O'Hare Expwy. extension will be constructed)
 * The new I-355 extension, as well as the massive new interchange between I-355 and I-55
 * Reconstructed through 2007, the new interchange between I-80, I-94, I-294 and IL 394, along with the new single-point urban interchange (SPUI) with US 6/IL 83
 * In NW Indiana, the Borman Expressway's 8-lane cross-section...at least until a traffic backup took rerouted the cars onto Ridge Rd.
 * IN 912/Cline Ave., past the steel mills of NW Indiana

Returning to the downtown Chicago area after 4:00 PM CDT, participants checked out the re-built Dan Ryan Expressway., Upper and Lower Wacker Drives, and the historic beginning/ending of an American Classic, Route 66. Following the conclusion of the Illinois tour, dinner was at the one-and-only Ed Debevic's. The food was great, and it paid to pay using either a credit card or to have exact change.

Saturday's tour centered on the Badger State, Wisconsin. In addition to Friday's Wikipedians, the group was were joined by Master_son, Lpangelrob and Retaildesigner. After meeting up at the Wisconsin Welcome Center (off ofI-94/US 41)...and everyone who didn't get one the day before got the latest Wiconsin map...the group embarked on our tour de SE Wisconsin. Highlights of Saturday's tour included the following:


 * WI 119, the Milwaukee Airport Connector, which was unsigned until 2007, when WI 119 shields and signs started to pop up
 * WI 794/I-794
 * The amazing Marquette interchange, which may be fully opened up later this year
 * I-43 north of the Marquette interchange
 * I-894

The group returned back via US 45 and CTH-Q, getting back to the welcome center in time for a good rain shower, which carried through most of the way back to our Downers Grove, where it started to clear up. After some of the group parted ways, a smaller group headed down to Navy Pier to enjoy the semi-weekly lakefront fireworks show...and some deep-dish pizza. The weather turned out very nicely for the fireworks, and it worked out to be an awesome way to wrap up the festivities.

Feature 3

 * Editor: CountyLemonade

Following a long debate over the use of shields on New York State Route 32's FA, and the subsequent removal of the shields in the infobox and the major junctions list, there is a discussion going on at WT:USRD concerning whether the FA reviewers' concerns of the use of thumbnail shields were valid as many of the other USRD articles use these shields. The Newsletter continues to maintain its neutrality, and as a result, it will not take any specific stance in the issue.

Project news

 * Nominations and votes are needed for July's selected article and selected picture.
 * The creation of new state highway subprojects are strongly discouraged. Instead, consider helping to fix the five projects currently demoted to task forces - Alabama, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada, and South Carolina.
 * Utah was promoted after the activity level increased.
 * There are only 85 articles above Good Article status within the scope of WikiProject U.S. Roads, only 0.87% of all assessed articles. Meanwhile, there are about 6100 stubs - almost two-thirds of all assessed articles. Please help improve the articles!

State updates
Write the updates below. If signatures are present, remove them before adding to the newsletter.

WP:USH: U.S. Route 491 has been nominated to be the featured article for April Fool's Day in 2009. The article would have to reach Featured Article status by next April to be considered. The discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:April Fool's Main Page. US 491, along with U.S. Route 163, were recently promoted to Good Article status.

Colorado/ New Mexico: Although currently there is no project to co-ordinate work on Colorado and New Mexico road articles, the above mentioned US 491 which passed as a Good Article on June 14, is Colorado's 2nd GA and New Mexico's 1st. Colorado's 1st road GA, Interstate 70 in Colorado, passed on May 11.

WP:MDRD: Maryland Route 36 became the project's first GA, passing on July 1.

WP:MISH: Michigan State Highways Wikiproject received its first FA, M-35, passing on May 21. M-107 (Michigan highway) was recently passed as a Good Article making a total of seven current GAs and one FA.

WP:MCDH: Michigan County Designated Highways Wikiproject was created as a task force on May 19.

WP:NVSH: Interstate 80 in Nevada became the project's 2nd GA, passing on June 8.

WP:NYSR: New York State Routes has fallen to 136 stubs to go with the news of the project's first featured list coming on June 8, after 30 days on Featured list candidates. The project got its second Featured Article and the first time a project has consecutively-designated FAs with New York State Route 175 passing on May 29. The project has an A-class review after the recent expansion of the article, New York State Route 343. The project has also gained its first Featured topic nomination, produced by User:Mitchazenia about New York State Route 20N and the history/routes behind it. The proposal is currently on FTC. New York State Route 319, New York State Route 324, New York State Route 318 and New York State Route 323 all recently passed their good article nominations. NYSR also has 2 Featured Article candidates, with New York State Route 28 and New York State Route 32 being nominated within an hour of each other. This is the first time NYSR has had 2 FACs at once. New York State Route 32 passed FAC on June 17 after a grueling debate on the use of shields. Mitch 32contribs 23:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:UTSH: The Utah State Highways project has been promoted from a task force to a project. Following a unanimous vote of support, the project was repromoted on May 17 following demotion that occurred on March 16, 2007, after more than a year of task force status. As a testament to the project's re-promotion, it has gained a trio of GAs. Utah State Route 279 became the project's third GA, passing on June 8, followed by U.S. Route 491 becoming UTSH's fourth GA on June 13. The project's fifth GA, Utah State Route 269, was passed on June 25.

WP:WASH: The Washington State Highways project's page has been remodeled. Also, two GA nominations and three peer reviews (Washington State Route 531, U.S. Route 101 in Washington, and List of highways in Snohomish County, Washington) for the project happened in May. During the month, the project finished creating every article in the current system excluding some state-specific U.S. route articles and one state-specific Interstate article. Also, Washington State Route 531 passed its GA on July 12, making it the second GA (the other is U.S. ROute 12 in Washington) in WP:WASH's history.

Leaderboard

 * Editor: Scott5114

Deletion debates

 * Compiler:

Coming and going

 * Compiler:

Featured member

 * Editor: ComputerGuy890100

Nomination for current member

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was Support. --CG was here. (T - C - S - E) 16:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * User:25or6to4 -- The Maps Task Force is the most underappreciated task force in the U.S. Roads Wikiproject. 25or6to4 has created numerous maps enabling articles to reach GA and FA status, and like most members of the maps task force, gotten very little credit for it. Dave (talk) 00:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Support re above. --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Support - Indeed, 25or6to4 has been awesome at my map requests, as he's been creating quality maps. Definitely undercredited in the USRD community - CL — 02:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Obvious support, I have worked with him for awhile over at WP:TXSH and the old adage about not truly knowing how valuable someone is until they are gone can clearly be seen at the backlog that developed at the maps task force when he was gone for a few weeks. --Holderca1talk 14:54, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Support 25or6to4 is a very good worker and has great mapping skills. — ComputerGuy890100  Talk to meWhat I've done to help Wikipedia 17:36, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I am closing this and writing the section for Featured member and From the editor. --CG was here. (T - C - S - E) 16:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.